NASCAR TV series races to attract Latino market

Associated Press

Published 11:58 pm, Thursday, March 28, 2013

Fontana, Calif.

Ela Rivella is a sexy, headstrong race car driver torn between two racing brothers in a glamorous, high-stakes world of cutthroat competition and danger. Ela loved Jordi Fernandez until jealousy drove them apart, and now she's irresistibly drawn to Checo, whose clandestine romance with Ela could drive Jordi to violence.

Sound like a soap opera? Maybe some particularly ambitious Formula One fan fiction?

It's an actual novela — the wildly popular short-run series that flood the Latino television market in North America and beyond — co-produced by Univision and NASCAR to put the down-home American sport of stock car racing in front of millions of Spanish-speaking viewers who might have never watched a NASCAR race.

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This remarkable blend of speed and cheese will debut on Univision's website in a series of five- to seven-minute episodes starting in April before appearing on Univision on May 5. Called "Arranque de Pasion, La Historia de Ela," it's an audacious attempt to expand the NASCAR brand into the growing Latino population through a particular form of storytelling.

"Nobody knows a lot about NASCAR," said Kate Del Castillo, the famed Mexican actress producing and starring in the novela. "I think we have to get much more exposure for NASCAR. When you think about it, it's all about family, and that's what we like. It's about spending an entire day at the track. It's an experience, a whole day for family, and yet it's very dangerous. It's very dramatic. I think it's perfect for us."

NASCAR vice president of entertainment marketing Zane Stoddard believes novelas are a way to crack a market that's been targeted for a decade with varying success. Last summer, NASCAR decided an original novela might work.

"It's our opportunity to meet them where they're at, within the genres they're already invested in," Stoddard said. "I feel like our sport is uniquely accessible in terms of relationships, family and all the things that drive television shows."